


...For All He's Worth

by Jaune_Chat



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Angst, Captain America: The First Avenger, Coming Untouched, Dubious Morality, F/M, Howling Commandos - Freeform, Humiliation, Hurt/Comfort, Hydra (Marvel), M/M, Mad Science, Male Lactation, Milking, Non-Consensual Bondage, Non-Consensual Touching, Rape/Non-con Elements, Restraints, Science Experiments, Shady Governments, Strategic Scientific Reserve, Super Soldier Serum, The US Government Is No Better
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-05-20
Updated: 2016-05-30
Packaged: 2018-06-09 15:04:05
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 2
Words: 7,574
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6912070
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Jaune_Chat/pseuds/Jaune_Chat
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When Steve is captured by Red Skull, the head of HYDRA has an experiment in mind to reproduce the super-soldier effect in a way no one ever expected.  Trapped in a changing body, Steve wonders if he'll ever be free, and what will become of him then.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Captive

**Author's Note:**

> Written for a [prompt at avengerkink](http://avengerkink.livejournal.com/21013.html?thread=52943893#t52943893).
> 
> Edited to add 10% more body horror, 5% more Schmidt gloating, 25% more angst, 45% more hurt/comfort, and 50% more sex with Peggy.

There had been a reason Steve Rogers had been afraid of hospitals. His father had died before one could help him. His mother worked in one, and that had led to her death. Steve had been in and out of them most of his life with minimal help for the myriad of problems that had plagued his health. Allowing Dr. Erskine to pop him in a metal coffin, pump him full of drugs and having Mr. Stark bombard him with Vita Rays had taken every ounce of courage Steve hadn't even known he'd possessed.

To wind up in a HYDRA medical facility, strapped to a table like Bucky had been, had Steve reaching deep for the courage that had sustained him through Project Rebirth. Bucky's death had made Steve reckless, he knew that, but it had been enough to thwart Red Skull's attack on American soil by disabling the Valkyrie plane before it had taken off. It hadn't been enough to prevent Red Skull’s escape, or his own capture when he’d gone ahead of the others, too focused on stopping Schmidt to think about the consequences.

He counted the exchange a small one for the safety of Peggy, the Commandos, for America. For Bucky.

"...And you think this will work?" someone muttered in German, just out Steve's line of sight. He'd been drilling the language with Gabe for the past couple of years, along with French from Dernier, but he wasn't sure if HYDRA knew of his fluency. That could give him an edge, if he played dumb long enough. God knew most of HYDRA seemed very willing to believe the image of the big, stupid American soldier.

"We've already attempted blood, bone marrow, spinal fluid, even semen, but no transfusion or infusion is bringing results," another voice said matter-of-factly. Steve went ice-cold as he tried to look at himself from his pinned-down position. How long had he been under? How long had they had him? He felt sore all over, and was humiliatingly nearly naked aside from monitoring equipment, a line in his arm, and something around his pelvis, tubes inserted in him to keep his waste from messing the table, but he couldn't see any scars or marks from their alleged tests. Had he already healed? Or were they talking about some kind of future plan?

"The serum's effects... are tricky to transfer. Herr Schmidt's own experiences were very unpredictable. A repetition of that will make him unhappy."

"Another failed attempt will make him more than unhappy," the second voice said more sharply. "We have compounds to put our volunteer's immune systems into a receptive state. It's a risk, but if this injection works on Rogers, it will be worth it. It is not a drug that his body will think to reject, not at first, and possibly not ever. All research and observation shows, if this is successful, the experiment will be self-perpetuating." A satisfied chuckle. "He may even grow to enjoy it. That would make Herr Schmidt very happy indeed."

"Do it. We have little else to try that will make repeat attempts possible."

Footsteps. Two men in laboratory coats came into view, flanked by four HYDRA soldiers. One uncapped a syringe full of something slightly green, and plunged it into the line that led to Steve's arm, the line that had to be keeping him hydrated and fed and alive. His veins burned a little as whatever-it-was entered his bloodstream, and then the presumed scientist prudently stepped back as Steve lunged against the restraints. They did not creak, and the table did not move, and he had to give up after a few moments to catch his breath.

"This should make a new man out of you, Captain," the man said with a tiny little smile. "And if all goes well, new men out of HYDRA too."

With that ominous statement, they left Steve alone.

\----

The isolation was worse than being dragged in front of Schmidt and beaten, worse than being thrown in a cell and jeered at. If he’d been on display like that, his presence would have been known, talked about, and someone would end up leaking his location, knowingly or not. But being kept close, it suggested worse.

He ached all over from his capture and forced passivity, strapped thoroughly to a tilting table like a specimen staked out for examination. With the care that he’d been tied down and his needs anticipated, there was little need to touch him, move him, give him any opening to escape. They meant to keep him.

It made him go hot with anger, that he’d gone after Schmidt and his alleged super-weapon, had brought down a plane before it could take off and bomb the entire Eastern Seaboard, had done everything he could to take Schmidt down, to destroy the organization who’d killed Bucky, who’d been at the root of so much misery and pain... He’d failed. He’d failed Bucky, failed the Commandos, failed all of them. Steve breathed deep and pushed away his growing sense of despair, gripping the strength of anger and keeping it close to warm him against the cold isolation of fear.

Time was difficult to tell in a room with no windows, but he thought it might have been three days before he saw another person again. The lines running to his arm disappeared into the ceiling, so he never saw anyone changing bags of nutrient fluid, and the times he kept up his testing of his restraints didn't seem to come to anything, only exhaustion with no ground won. Perhaps they'd been ordered to keep him isolated for this experiment. Perhaps there was something in the nutrient mix that was knocking him out for as long as it could so they could check up on him while he was unconscious. 

Maybe they just wanted to keep him frightened and guessing what their plans were for him. If so...

He realized on what he figured was the third day, when bouts of what he thought were fever and soreness began to concentrate from an all-over ague to a tight heat in his chest muscles. Then just his pectorals. Flat on his back, his chest had just looked oddly swollen, but during that third day, table abruptly had come to life, tilting him forward. His chest shifted, sagged, and he couldn’t ignore the painfully tender swells anymore. They _ached_ , and he barely had to flick his eyes down to see them hanging heavy and prominent off his chest like a woman's breasts. He felt like the skin was ready to split, like the slightest touch would crack them open.

Finally, the door opened. The shadowed hallway couldn't hide the silhouette of Johann Schmidt as he stared at his prisoner, arms crossed. Despite hundreds of desperate attempt to free himself, tugging at the restraints had caused nothing. Less than nothing. Steve didn't know what material they had been made from, but something in the metallic mesh made him suspect that Schmidt had gotten ahold of some very advanced material.

It was thinking of little things like that that kept Steve from nearly screaming at the relentless pressure and pain that was distorting his body.

"Ah, Captain. This is a sight I'd never expected to see. For this alone almost makes up for your ruining of my plans. But you may be of yet more use, even as you are. Let us test the results, and see if our theories are correct," he said very thoughtfully.

"What the hell did you do to me?" Steve demanded.

"You shall see." Schmidt reached up and tugged off his gloves with a series of slow, deliberate movements, then reached into a pocket to retrieve a glass flask. He crossed the room, and Steve knew a moment's wild hope before he saw no less than six HYDRA soldiers standing behind Schmidt in the hallway. Even if he could somehow overpower Schmidt in his restraints, there were too many potential rescuers at hand for that to work for more than a few seconds. 

Schmidt reached up to Steve's aching chest, flask held close to a distended and swollen nipple, and brushed it with one finger. Steve screamed through a closed mouth as a powerful stream of something white sprayed violently into the flask, bringing an immediate relief so strong it was almost crippling with pleasure. His other nipple began to drip enthusiastically, and Steve slammed so hard against the restraints the table rattled. Schmidt barely seemed to notice, only bringing out a second flask and touching it to the other nipple, turning the drip into another hard spray. Steve caught himself moaning in sheer, animal relief before catching himself, watching in shuddering disbelief as Schmidt filled two flasks from his body.

He'd... He'd _milked_ Steve. He'd turned Steve's body into a factory to produce milk for... experiments? The serum? Just to humiliate him? Steve was flushed red as he realized how strongly his body was reacting to the pull on his new, sensitive body parts, how hard he was within the waste-collection device around his loins, how he had been heartbeats away from climaxing at his enemy's hands.

"Get away from me," Steve growled. His voice almost broke on the last word as Schmidt took his hands away, stopping the relief Steve had just realized was almost necessary.

"I shall be back, Captain. For my future," he said, left.

Steve collapsed in his bonds, breathing hard, watching the line in his arm, and nearly able to feel his chest filling up again. He took a few shuddering breaths, and closed his eyes.

Someone had to be looking for him. Did they think he had died? Did they think him and Schmidt had taken each other out and weren't looking for either of them? Surely someone would want to find his body...

Blank spaces in his awareness continued to dog him, from sleep that was more like passing out, to seemingly small slivers of unconsciousness which sometimes heralded changes. After his single time talking, he had awoken to his head strapped back and a tube in his throat. Something warm and semi-solid would pour down it several times a day, filling him to uncomfortable fullness, feeding him whatever was needed to keep him fueling HYDRA’s experiment. 

He tested his restraints whenever he was aware and alone, always pulling, always hoping the mesh would weaken, the fibers would start to fray, the metal start to fatigue. Unless HYDRA's soldiers were willing to come into the room and unstrap him to change his bindings, they would never know. And their paranoia about Steve Rogers seemed to prevent them from doing that. Slow patience might solve what all the violent punching in the world would not.

Because slow patience was all he had. His chest hurt nearly all the time as his milk continued to fill it in an inevitable flood. His body had taken to the HYDRA scientists’ formula with gusto, and there was never an hour in which he couldn’t feel the inevitable swelling, filling sensation. The pain he could endure, up to a point, and straining against his bonds, however futile, was he only exercise. His body could survive it, producing the milk. The only relief (he would never call it kindness) was when Schmidt would arrive with his entourage. It gave Schmidt the duel pleasure of collecting components for his experiment, as well as watching Steve's face as he tried, and sometimes failed, to keep his composure. After so much pain and inactivity, his body seized on the act of milking as the ultimate release. Milk would begin to trickle in a steady flood down his stomach when Schmidt would enter the room, the sight his signal his pain was at a temporary end.

Schmidt wouldn’t even grant him the reprieve of not being forced to look at his humiliation: between the tilting table and a strategically-placed mirror, he had to watch Schmidt harvest from his body as well as feel it, had to fight the anger from overwhelming him as well as the fear and despair from dragging him under. And most of all he had to fight the relief, the God-be-damned agonizing, wonderful relief of the milk coming out, a sensation so powerful, so primal, he had to fight from climaxing at Schmidt’s touch. Schmidt never seemed to react much more strongly than a sneer, as if he’d expected it, like he knew what his lab rat would do for a reward. Like Steve couldn’t help himself, and he’d expected no less of him. It made every time Steve held back a tiny victory. 

But at the same time, Steve wasn’t sure how much more he could take. This had gone on for weeks, months, and his spirit was battered black and blue.

“Ah, Captain, it is good you are so enthusiastic to see me,” Schmidt said one day with mock gentleness, slowly tugging on Steve’s nipples until the rising tide of pleasure made him thrash against his bonds, trying not to moan, trying not to come, trying not to give up and whimper in his enemy’s presence. Trying, always, to pull hard, then harder on his bonds, hoping that _this_ time they would finally break, finally let him get his hands on Red Skull’s throat.

He knew his first act would be to free himself. His second… oh God help him, his second would be to…

Steve always stopped himself before he thought too far along those lines, keeping as stoic as he could, hating every tremor, sound, squirm, and inevitable spasm of relief/pleasure that left him limp in his bonds, any evidence that gave Schmidt a hint of anything he wanted.

“You should be proud, Captain,” Schmidt said, as he casually wiped Steve’s milk off his fingers, after handing flask after flask to the HYDRA soldiers in the hallway. Despite his pleasure at Steve’s humiliation, Schmidt tended to his experimental task mostly as if Steve were a prize goat that gave unusually rich milk. He had lost track of how much his body had produced over the endless days or weeks, but it had to have been dozens of gallons. Maybe more. His serum-enhanced system could apparently out-produce any human woman, and even some cows. “The experiment is proceeding as designed. Perhaps more slowly than our own transformations, but far faster than trying to modify babies before birth. Look upon your children and mine, Captain, and see how they’ve grown!”

Schmidt held out a picture of a dark-haired young man, no more than eighteen, standing in his underwear in front of a wall with a height chart upon it. He was neither particularly sickly, nor overly strong. To identify him at the bottom of the picture, someone had written the initials “D. H.” and “Week 0.” Schmidt flipped to another picture. Week 1, Week 2, Week 3, until the time totaled up nearly three whole months. In each picture, D. H. looked stronger, fitter, a little taller, broader, his eyes brighter. The changes were far more dramatic than could be explained by even the fiercest training regimen, and the contrast between Week 0 and Week 13 a damning piece of evidence that the HYDRA scientists had hit upon a successful way to transfer the serum’s effects. Schmidt continued to show him picture after picture: W. P., U. O., G. H., R. B., A. W., a dozen other young men who’d developed the bodies of super-soldiers upon drinking Steve’s milk. A dozen soldiers for HYDRA.

“A rousing success. And we have these to thank for it.” He caressed the sides of Steve’s breasts in a sickening gentle gesture before abruptly taking two more flasks and pulling savagely on Steve’s nipples to fill them, the milk leaping out to a feeling of profound relief.

Black despair closed in around Steve’s heart. _Freak,_ Steve thought to himself, seeing Schmidt’s red flesh, his own breasted body, the milk flowing to fill more of HYDRA’s soldiers with strength and vitality they would use against his country . He’d betrayed Dr. Erskine’s final admonition somehow in his need for revenge for Bucky’s death, and that must have been partially responsible for this nightmare. 

“No,” he said, hardly above a whisper and twisted hard against the bonds he’d been working at for months. Every fiber strained as Steve brought up a last, wretched howl of defiance from the core of his body.

Something creaked. Schmidt hesitated. Steve didn’t. The restraints failed almost simultaneously, and Steve’s hands closed so fast on Red Skull’s neck that Schmidt was dead before he’d had proper time to register his surprise. The flasks slipped from his nerveless fingers to shatter on the floor, spilling Steve’s precious milk everywhere. The soldiers outside the door fumbled for their guns, their reactions dulled from seeing Steve as little more than a piece of meat for far too long. He grabbed the nearest soldier and tossed him into another, balance a little off from his new center of gravity and breasts hurting from being hurled around, but too on fire with adrenaline to let a single one escape alive. It was a short, fierce fight, and not a single bullet was exchanged to alert the base that their prize was now free.

Steve dropped to his knees by Schmidt’s body, and the first thing he did was touch himself, milk himself, using long, gentle pulls to coax out every single drop of the damn milk and spatter it over Schmidt’s body. Schmidt had never emptied him completely, and the relief was completely overwhelming, enough to bring tears to Steve’s eyes. His cock, always hard from someone touching his aching breasts, now free from its confines, twitched and came in sympathy, finishing glazing Schmidt’s corpse in white fluid.

Steve was gasping on his hands and knees, nipples nearly touching the floor, by the time his body was done reacting to freedom. 

Then he stole clothes from the dead soldiers, not able to close any shirt over his chest, loaded himself up on weapons, and went to find a radio. And his “children.”

\---

He found the radio first, and barricaded himself in the communication room with a nice little stockpile of guns, ammunition, and explosives. The remaining HYDRA soldiers still might have been able to smoke him out and recapture him, if someone hadn’t found Schmidt’s body. That had sent the base into a panic, compounded by realizing that their position had been compromised when Steve had started calling out their coordinates on every frequency he could reach. The HYDRA soldiers had cut and run, leaving behind nothing but echoes. Steve’s thoughts of retaliation for his long captivity had cooled when he realized how weak he was – months of inactivity had taken their toll, only partially compensated by forced-feeding and the strength of anger. There would be no time to go looking for his “children” now, not if he wanted to stay alive.

The SSR had been close (they had _never_ given up looking for him, and he cursed himself for ever thinking that they had abandoned him), and the sweet sounds of Dum-Dum’s “Waa-hoo!” had been music to Steve’s ears. His “children” had already scattered by the time the Howling Commandos had raided the base, too valuable to risk in a fight just yet. Steve had only been able to take his frustration out on those HYDRA soldiers left behind, grabbing a spare blanket he’d found to protect whatever dignity he had left when Dernier and the others had broken through the door to meet him.

\---

Colonel Phillips had hustled him to a secure base and infirmary, one gruff smile his only change in expression when he said, “You survived. Good.” 

At least he’d let Peggy in to see him privately, before all the doctors would come by with their news. After all, she was a non-official part of the Commandos now, and she would give them the news that Phillips would try to keep from them. 

Steve kept the blanket around his shoulders firmly held in his hand, hiding his changes from Peggy as he leaned down to kiss her. It was a softer, sincerer kiss than it had been in a speeding car running after a plane, born of more than adrenaline. A hot tear splashed against her cheek, and he pulled back. Peggy didn't let him though, putting her hands along the side of his face. “Steve, I know. We captured the experimental files from the HYDRA scientists.” He nodded into her hair. Of course they would know. Of course HYDRA had probably been taking pictures of him while unconscious, or unaware. He could have had the entire press corps in the doorway while he had been in the throes of being milked and he likely wouldn’t have noticed.

“Can the SSR…?” he asked, trailing off.

“Howard’s looking into it. He’s hopeful after he analyzed the drugs you were being given that he can find a counter-agent. Steve, does it hurt?”

“No,” he rasped out. “Not like… no.”

She put her hands on his over the clasped-together blanket and looked up at him with a question in her face. He breathed in, then let the blanket part, the swells of his breasts clearly visible. She’d already seen him at his worst, when he’d been small and half-killing himself in basic, and this couldn’t be much uglier than that.

“Oh, Steve,” she said, pinking a little, though he wasn’t sure it was because of embarrassment or something else. 

“Just… hurts when they’re full. Is…” he had to ask, a thread of fear running down his spine. “Does the Army know? Do they want me, my milk? The HYDRA experiment worked. There were at least a dozen soldiers in the trial.”

He hadn’t missed the locks on his doors, ones designed to keep him _in_ , rather than out. Peggy looked uncertain, and Steve remembered the coldly calculating words of Colonel Phillips upon Erskine’s death, who had declared that Steve was useless alone. He’d proven him wrong, but not in the way anyone had expected. Now the Army could get their money’s worth from Erskine’s research, and not just in the form of one dancing monkey in a uniform, or one super soldier leading a squad. 

“I don’t know what they’re going to do. I’m worried, Steve. Howard is trying to see you, but-.”

Howard Stark, no matter his intelligence and influence, was only one man. Steve Rogers had promised to serve his country, and they would take their pound of flesh, or gallon of milk, in any way they could. They were trying to keep him calm with a nice room, Peggy’s presence, and the pretense that they were looking into a cure, but Steve knew things were about to go wrong again. Not even Colonel Phillips could let this temptation go by.

Steve knew the SSR couldn’t hold him against his will, not really, but they could try. The might couch their request in any number of ways, appealing to his loyalty, his patriotism, his sense of fairness, that he could give others an edge over the HYDRA soldiers that were sure to be arrayed against them. Many of the arguments would be fairly reasonable, and after all, the dirty work had already been done. “Might as well make the best of a bad situation, son,” he could almost hear someone saying in a soft and kindly voice.

Steve already knew his answer. He already knew who could be trusted with Dr. Erskine’s formula, and who needed to be stopped. He would not let the serum be blithely given to anyone else, not distributed, not patented, not doled out to every Gilmore Hodge in the barracks. Steve had been the one to pay the price for it, and Steve would be the one to share it with the few people who’d _earned_ it.

Steve interrupted Peggy, keeping his mouth next to her ear. “Did you get ahold of what they were using on the HYDRA soldiers to make the experiment work?”

Peggy went very still, and nodded stiffly. Of course she would. She had a nose for trouble like no other.

“Do you have it with you?”

She reached into her pocket, and he heard a faint rattle as she came up with a white tablet on her finger, which she surreptitiously slipped under her tongue. From her expression, Steve guessed it was very bitter. He touched his right nipple gently, gathering up a few drops and tasting himself for the first time. God, he was sweet.

“If it’s going to be anyone, Peggy, let it be you,” he whispered. “Just be a good person, please.”

She looked up at him, stunned by the responsibility he was laying on her. “Steve-.”

“I know you can do it, and so do you. You’ve always known. Please,” he begged her, and shrugged the blanket off completely. “Empty me.”

Peggy touched him with infinite gentleness at his nod of permission, her cool hands bliss on his swollen breasts, and he gasped as milk started to spill out. She leaned up to kiss him again, soothing the tender pain. Steve felt his skin get sticky under her hands and broke off, whispering, “Don’t waste it.”

“I won’t.” 

Steve had expected her to take one of the flasks or vials they’d left in his room to use. Instead, Peggy put her lips to his nipple, her eyes on him and sucked, getting full mouthfuls of rich and creamy milk. Steve moaned and sighed, hard inside his pants as she drained him suck by suck, first the right, then the left, more than anyone had ever taken at once, gentle and persistent pressure with her small fingers caressing him the most intense pleasure he’d ever known.

“God,” he whispered, caressing her dark hair, almost enjoying everything. He couldn’t believe she wanted to touch him like this. Her hand was braced against his inner thigh, and he blushed as his aching erection twitched, nearly touching her. She paused in her drinking to look up at him more fully. 

“It’s all right.” There was a wealth of understanding and desire in her eyes, and Steve breathed out a shuddering breath as he stopped holding back. “I want to.” She really wanted him, and not out of pity; Steve could spot that a mile off. That made him a little dizzy with relief. Steve hadn’t thought much of his looks before the serum, and while he hadn’t really considered himself _vain_ , after the changes, he’d actually liked how he looked in a mirror for the first time in his life. And then to have his body change on him again, it had brought back a boatload of uncertainty. Peggy lifted all of that off of him with a look. If she hadn’t wanted him this way, she would have found a dozen other ways to help him as a friend.

“Yes, please, Peggy.” His words only came out in fragments as she slipped her hand into his underwear and closed in around him. She stroked him as she suckled, and Steve barely held back cries of relief as he let himself _feel_ for the first time in months. He came hot and sticky into her hand at least three times as she drained him, smoothing his spending into his own skin. Held so intimately close, the edge of dangerous anger and fear he’d been holding onto for endless weeks stepped down, and Peggy eased the worry and diamond-hard focus she’d had to maintain for too long with the touch of Steve’s skin under her lips, his hands on her head, his faith in her. Her refusal to give up on him.

Her face came up, lips smeared with a bit of translucent white, subtle changes happening to her even now, Steve could tell. So much taken from the source would give Peggy an edge anyone else brought in wouldn’t be able to match.

“Come back, take more, give it to the Commandos,” he panted, coming down from his high. He took a packet of papers from his pocket, sketches he’d made of his “children” during the wait between radio call and rescue, faces and bodies and initials of those that needed to be captured before HYDRA could use them in the war, and pressed it into her hand, along with his shield, liberated from a HYDRA trophy room. “Lead the Commandos. Find the others from the experiment before anyone else does.”

Peggy got a look of steely determination on her face, one she’d had since the first time he’d seen her. “Will you be all right?”

Steve straightened up his spine as he felt the weight in his chest start to increase again, a trickle of confidence from having been able to _do something_ giving him back his strength. “I can do this all day.”

“We will come back for you,” she said fiercely. “We didn’t lose you to HYDRA just to lose you to anyone else.” She rose, kissing him again, and walked out.

Steve just smiled as she left, her heels already tapping more sharply on the ground than before. More than one person had tried to take him for all he was worth. Now they’d see what he _really_ had to give. He closed the blanket around his breasts again, right now the only shield he needed. Hopefully, very soon, he’d have his real one back again. He just hoped Peggy was willing to share.


	2. The Shadowed Commandos

Steve spent a month recovering every bit of strength he’d lost, testing his body and driving himself back to fighting condition. Despite no longer being confined and forced-fed, it seemed his body didn’t want to let go of the changes it had undergone, and Howard hadn’t been real sanguine about being able to find a solution.

“Give me enough time, and I’m sure I could,” he said. He had been tasked to take samples of Steve’s blood, but Steve had watched Howard cheerfully take samples of nothing, and swap empty vials for full ones from some other source. Apparently the SSR higher ups had managed to piss him off enough to rebel, disgusted at how they were treating one of their own. “But the SSR wants me on a whole different tract. Luckily, I work a hell of a lot faster than that.” 

Working on a counter-agent could take months, maybe years, but in the interim, Howard had made something for Peggy to make it easier to smuggle Steve’s milk out, a waterproof bag that looked like a normal briefcase. All three of them had been adamant about not giving anyone else in the SSR the slightest amount of the serum, and the higher-ups’ nominal sense of propriety, that they were waiting for Steve to say yes on his own, let them stall long enough for Steve to get fighting fit, and the Commandos to be ready. 

Steve had come to some sort of peace about the fact the SSR didn’t want him back to normal; he would make the best of a bad situation, and he would do it his own way. He left the SRR a month later, walked out the door, a coat around his shoulders and his head held high. He hadn’t had to punch more than a few people. The Howling Commandos had been having fresh milk for breakfast and dinner for a month. They were willing to punch a lot more for him.

“We have leads, Captain,” Gabe had told him in greeting, the fit, smiling faces of his squad mates looking nearly ten years younger all around him. Peggy was in their ranks, looking very comfortable with his shield.

“Then let’s get to them.” That was all it took. He felt like a soldier again.

Technically, they were AWOL. Technically, they were disobeying orders, violating several laws, and might even be able to be accused of treason. Realistically, the Allies had better things to do than to try to arrest their national war icon, particularly when he was tracking down Nazi super-weapons and enhanced soldiers that could torpedo carefully-laid battle plans. Out of respect, fear, or maybe just benign neglect, no one was willing to say a thing. They had not precisely been disavowed. But no one was condoning them either.

Steve counted that as fair.

Dernier, with a scavenger instinct second to none, had found a blue cape to add to Steve’s uniform. With fingers clever enough to make bombs or alter uniforms he had even sewn on Steve’s star, giving him his Captain America mantle back. It was a cross between a formal nurse’s cape and a cloak from a Victorian postcard, loose and short enough to allow him to fight and throw his shield unimpeded, long enough and close-fastened enough in front to hide his new endowments. He wasn’t about to show himself to the world. He saved that for the people he trusted.

The Commandos all knew, of course. Peggy had made it ruthlessly plain what was going on when she had brought out the bottles he’d given to her, and any squeamishness at the source of their new source of vitality and strength had been subsumed in trust and need. Their Captain had come out of the other side of hellish captivity with something that could help them finish their jobs and go home. Now the Commandos’ experience and unique talents could be backed up with the resilience to take on blows from the unexpected as well. 

Steve had learned a lot about how to fight from each of them, his fighting experience before Project Rebirth mostly being watching a few boxing matches and being on the losing end of far too many fights. Now, he could test them and their strength from memory, fiercely glad to see Falsworth’s boxing at speeds that were a struggle for even him to block, for Dum-Dum’s strongman strength to nearly rival his own.

“’Bout damn time someone took you down a peg, kid,” Dum-Dum said, upon winning his first arm-wrestling bout with Steve. Steve smiled, tight and focused, and knew the Commandos were more than ready to take on anything HYDRA could throw at them. They’d keep fighting, and he’d keep giving them the edge they need.

\----

The Commandos received their milk from Peggy’s hands, but she still took hers from Steve himself.

Falsworth had accidentally walked in on them with some bit of news, slipping into Steve’s tent quietly in enemy territory. He’d come up short at the sight of Peggy kneeling at Steve’s side on his bedroll, head bent to his concealed chest, his hand stroking her head, her hand kneading at this thigh. Rogers’ expression was torn between bliss and fierce protection, nevermind that Peggy could spar equally with Dum-Dum now.

Falsworth was strongly reminded of a Roman legend he had learned as a schoolboy, of how the twins Romulus and Remus were cast into the wilderness, then rescued and nursed by a she-wolf. There had been a picture of some ancient woodcut that looked just like the scene before him. He cleared his throat delicately. They both looked up, unashamed, and James suddenly wasn’t either, despite the intimacy of the scene.

“Enemy on the move, here within the hour, Captain. Morita says we need to be getting a move on.”

Rogers shifted enough to button his cape, then grabbed his shield, while Peggy slipped his pistol in his holster before grabbing her own rifle. In a moment, the tender lovers had become Commandos again.

Falsworth found that marvelous.

“Let’s go,” Steve said, and turned to lead the Commandos into the night.

\---

Five HYDRA installations later, chasing rumors of super-soldiers while dismantling weapon-making facilities, Howard managed to smuggle some news out to them from his lab at the SSR, both good and bad. Blood drawn from Peggy and the others (at their one rendezvous with Stark weeks earlier) showed some of the effects of the serum, but its longevity was in doubt. The pills that made their bodies “receptive” were dangerous, leaving them open to possible infection that even infusions of what was like serum-heavy colostrum might not work to combat. Everyone was decidedly stronger and faster, healed more cleanly and quicker, but past a certain point, if Steve suddenly ran dry, it wouldn’t necessarily last. 

That wasn’t all to the bad. Steve’s “children” would slowly lose the enhancements that made them so dangerous. And after the war, the Commandos would be able to leave the army behind and have a normal life. 

Steve rubbed his aching breasts absently as he digested the news Peggy had told him. “But not now,” he said into Peggy’s hair. She tilted up her face to look him in the eyes, shifting closer to him to bring him into contact with as much of her bare skin as possible, the both of them tangled up in his bedroll and her blanket.

“I know,” she said, resting her head on his chest. “Steve, we’re doing this for more than you.”

That made him feel a lot better, that the burden of this rested on all of them equally, but they still trusted him to lead them. He trailed a hand down Peggy’s leonine muscle in her arm and down her leg, touching a ticklish foot that she impatiently twitched out of his wandering hand. She was still warm from their lovemaking and the serum both, a little sticky from his milk that never really let up when her hands were on him. He ran his hands back up to cup her own breasts gently in absent-minded fondness that made her smile. She pressed a kiss to his palm and turned back to look at him a bit ruefully. Time to get up, and they both knew it.

“Thank you,” he said, “Love you, Peggy.” He sighed as she pushed herself upright, and stroked a hand down her back, over a knot of scar tissue from a bullet she had taken a few months back. He’d seen her go down, almost hesitated, until she rolled back up in the same motion, driving herself forward as a human spear to take down the shooter in a display of furious grace that made him keep his mind on his own job. She was steadier than he had been his first time in a real fight, and if there had been any way it had been possible, Peggy should have been in the Vita Ray chamber long before Steve.

He’d been able to give her this, though, a fraction of what she deserved, to help show what she was already capable of. And Peggy… he’d been waiting for his right partner. She never stopped challenging him, even when he’d been a string bean, and hadn’t bothered to stop now. It almost possible to feel a kind of normal. Steve reached for the clean canteens by the bedroll as Peggy cleaned herself off and slipped behind him, wrapping her arms around him so she could help him fill them, emptying his aching fullness, sighing luxuriously as his body poured out its bounty to his friends.

“Come on,” she said, putting the canteens aside so Steve could get dressed. “There was more news from Howard I wanted to tell everyone at once.” There was a faint shadow in her expression, and she put a hand on his shoulder as he finished fastening his cape. He looked up at her, and suddenly realized what it had to be about, “It’s about Bucky.”

\---

“They looked,” Peggy explained, as the other Commandos passed the canteens around the campfire, and Steve sat heavily on a log between Peggy and Dum-Dum. “They wanted to send him home to his family. But the pass was treacherous. There were… some signs of the fall. But none of his body.”

Steve hadn’t expected them to find anything, if he was honest. The fall had been impossibly long, and what distance didn’t take care of, scavengers would have. He hadn’t really been able to put a final stamp on his mourning, caught up too much in revenge and then torture and then mission after self-imposed mission.

“Bucky…” he said quietly, and Morita spoke up before Steve could finish.

“Dirtiest mind in the squad,” he said.

“Best taste in music,” Gabe said, raising his cup in a toast.

“Damned good with his rifle,” Falsworth said.

“Sneaky bastard in a fight,” Dum-Dum added.

“A good heart for his friends,” Dernier said, his French making his eulogy very melodious.

“Never afraid to fight for who he believed in,” Peggy said, and turned to Steve.

Steve raised his own canteen, “To Bucky.”

“To Bucky,” everyone said. Steve realized they’d been waiting to mourn him too, not just him. No matter that he’d known Bucky longer and maybe better, they’d known him as fellow warriors long before Steve had gotten to the front. Bucky’d had them out here, watching his back and him watching theirs, before Steve had managed to find him again. And they had, finally, found each other again, and they’d been able to fight side-by-side for a while. They’d had that. A little balm came to his soul, far better drinking with his squad than alone in a bombed-out bar.

He actually chuckled a little, seeing milk moustaches on everyone. “He would have been teasing the hell out of me.”

“What, about keeping abreast of the situation?” Peggy asked with a perfectly-raised eyebrow.

Steve was startled into laughter that quickly grew contagious around the campfire, and put his arm around Peggy, half in comradery, half in something more, and suddenly felt a lot better about the world.

\----

The final raid of the shadowed Commandos had them chasing after the blue cube Schmidt’s remaining followers had been using to fuel HYDRA’s weapons. The war had shifted in the Allies’ favor, and the Commandos were going to make sure it stayed that way. After HYDRA’s failure with the Valkyrie plane, the remaining HYDRA command tried to use a ship to smuggle the cube out of the country, hiding under false flags and dodging through blockades to the north until code-breakers had discovered their transmissions didn’t match either their civilian cover or anything from Nazi high command.

Someone on staff still believed in Captain America, and the Commandos had been forced to parachute into battle at the last possible minute. Their aerial assault met a shocked contingent of HYDRA soldiers whose faces everyone knew – they’d been studying drawings Steve had made of them for six months. These dozen young men, hyped on near-religious fervor of a madman’s dream and fueled by residual serum, refused to go down easily. Young as they were, Schmidt’s experiment had worked more thoroughly on them than it had on Steve’s friends.

But the Howling Commandos had more years, more missions, more determination than blind obedience. They had Dum-Dum’s hammering fists, Dernier’s clever sabotage, Falsworth’s rifle skill, Gabe’s careful coordination, Morita’s ferret-quick takedowns, and Steve and Peggy plowing through the ship like a pair of tanks. Even so, it was a tough, nasty fight, one that had left Steve chasing one of the last soldiers, D. H. if he remembered right, down into the bowels of the ship. He had the cube, the deadly thing in a solid-looking box that still leaked energy, and looked to escape with the prize in a miniature submarine that would launch from underneath, taking him God knew where. What HYDRA could do with that thing didn’t bear thinking about, and if Steve let the man escape, there was no telling where he would end up.

Steve leapt off the catwalk to land in front of D. H., shield on his arm. The startled HYDRA soldier backed off slightly, then widened his eyes when he realized who was standing in front of him. There was less fear in his gaze than Steve would have wanted, more of a sneer curling at his lips.

“Mutti,” D. H. said, his gun coming up blindingly fast. Steve had enough time to register disgust before the shield slammed down just as fast, cutting the barrel of the gun and making D. H. stagger backwards. _Mutti – Mother, God damn Schmidt_. D. H. turned his stagger into an efficient, backwards scramble, vaulting different levels of stairs and catwalks as he focused on getting to the sub. Steve didn’t hesitate, and flung himself down hard enough to catch D. H., landing them both hard inside the cockpit. D. H. kicked out frantically, catching the controls to seal the sub and release it through its launch bay.

They tumbled down together, fighting for the controls, and Steve could hear the engines kicking into life, taking them farther and farther away, diving down, down, and down. D. H. writhed, getting out of his grip and raising the cube container, smashing it against Steve’s shield. If there was a German U-Boat anywhere near here, they could scoop up the cube and D. H. both, then blow Peggy and the rest of the Commandos sky high. Steve couldn’t take that chance. If HYDRA escaped with the cube, there was no telling what they would do with it. They’d been ready to take out half of America before – now they’d likely settle for nothing less.

_Peggy, I’m so sorry._

Steve stopped trying to struggle for the controls, and instead smashed his shield upward, past D. H. And flooded the vessel.


End file.
